10 Times When Renji Panicker Enriched Our English Vocabulary

We all are aware of the firebrand style of writing that is the trademark of Renji Panicker scripts. In fact he is one of those writers who has given us the most memorable mass dialogues in Malayalam cinema. His scripts have the transgressive style to it. But, what makes him different among the other Malayalam film scriptwriters is the way he forms his dialogues. Expect for his first three movies, all his films are filled with lengthy dialogues and monologues which has got a zinc and rhythm to it. Almost all of them are popular dialogues in Malayalam cinema. And here again, he introduces these big English words, which are not commonly used, and that too in a rhyming fashion. Many a times, you need a dictionary to understand what the character just said. That is why he gives the Malayalam meaning of those words in the same dialogue and have to say this, he does it brilliantly. So, in this article, we are focusing on 10 dialogue/monologue scenes in Renji Panicker films which used uncommon English words and helped us to largen our English vocabulary.

[NB: This is not picking up the best 10 dialogue scenes written by Renji Panicker, that’s a whole different article for another time. Here we have only picked those Mass dialogue scenes, in which more than one English words were used which were totally new to many of the audience, at its time of release. So you won’t find the power packed dialogues from Mohanlal’s Praja or Suresh Gopi’s Commissioner in this space.]

Scene: Jayan one-on-one with Mammootty | The King & The Commissioner [2012]

As it is usual in Renji Panicker scripts, when villain and hero come one-on-one, there happens a long conversation in which a lot of English words and terms are uttered, which makes us doubt the strength and depth of our English vocabulary. And, this is one such scene. We couldn’t even keep a count of the uncommonly used words after a time. Considering that, this scene might be the personal best for the writer on the terms of maximum number of unheard English words used in one scene.

Scene: Intro of Mammootty | The King & The Commissioner [2012]

Agreed, this movie is one of the worst sequels made in Malayalam cinema but that doesn’t hinder the fact that the dialogue scenes in this film were a terrific English word play. In this scene where Joseph Alex Thevalliparambil (Mammootty) is introduced into the movie, he comes face-to-face with a bunch of journalist. And there goes a sphere of English terminologies, which were hard to even comprehend in one go. Then there is a clinical dissection of the current trend in journalism which surely made a lot of whistles burst out in the theaters.

Scene: Mammootty with CM | Roudram [2008]

This movie had a lot of big bulky mass dialogue scenes but the usage of English terms were either too common or the ones Renji Panicker had used in his previous movies. In this scene itself, when ACP Narendran (Mammootty) is asked to stop the ongoing investigation by CM (Janarthanan), for most of the part he replies in Malayalam. But then, it’s coming from the pen of Renji Panicker and how can some unheard English word not be there. Thus, Mammootty utters words like renegade and dialectical materialism. And, there we needed a dictionary again!

Stinking, sickening, repulsive, blatant, prerogative and intimidating are just few of the tough English words used in this scene. Now, you tell us, isn’t this dialogue portion totally a fit to this list? Adding to that, this scene also showed us the ways in which many newspapers create explosive news out of thin air to make a circulation boom.

Scene: Suresh Gopi confronting his arch rivals | Lelam [1997]

This is the scene where Aanakattil Chakochi (Suresh Gopi) confronts his arch rivals at their home and introduces each one of them using words in English which, till then, very few Malayalis knew that it existed. With the powerful voice of Suresh Gopi, this scene had gone down in the history as one of the most power packed hero-villain encounter scene.

Scene: Suresh Gopi at a political party office | Lelam [1997]

This is a tad bit lengthy scene where Aanakattil Chakochi (Suresh Gopi) is seen confronting a politician in his party office. This scene would have missed out our mark, if not for the last dialogue of this scene, because till then it was verbal play in Malayalam and the English words used were common ones. But then comes the words like pseudo socialist, pseudo proletarian, pseudo philanthropic and the last word (because we have no idea how it is even spelt).

Scene: MG Soman at the Parish House | Lelam [1997]

No one can forget this scene where Aanakattil Eappachan (MG Soman) delivers a befitting monologue to the Bishop, when asked to back out from the liquor auction. This is the one scene for which the great actor is remembered by most of this generation. We would have had to look in a dictionary for what irreverent and outspoken means, if it weren’t explained in the same dialogue.

Scene: Murali and Mammootty in the CM’s office | The King [1995]

Did you really knew the meaning of ignominious, impertinent, impudent, iconoclastic, bomblastic, omnipotent and all those English words in this scene, when you first heard it? No, right? That is why this scene in included in this list. And this is another example of Renji Panicker style where even the villain is given such terrific and mass dialogues.

Scene: Interval punch | The King [1995]

Ok, this is an epic one. It is the interval punch scene in the movie, where the district collector Joseph Alex Thevalliparambil (Mammootty) explains his legal authority over police commissioner Shankar (Devan) and also explains the legal sections under which he is going to arrest Thankachan (Azeez) who is a yellow journalist. The number of English words used in this scene is too much and all the legal points mentioned here are to the dot right. This is one of the best dialogue scenes in Malayalam films.

This is the scene where Nambiar (Narendra Prasad), an ousted politician, comes face-to-face with Gopalakrishan (Jagadish), the state home minister in the latter’s office. Remember, this movie was in 1993 and obviously an actor like Jagadish was an out of the box choice for such roles. But he did his role brilliantly. In this scene both the actors are seen using words like, overzealous, verbal diarrhoea, enchanted and nauseating. Back then, these words were less known to common audience and many might have thought that these are just made up words.